Faculty Recital For Cello And Piano To Be Held April 8

Dr. Gary Hardie, professor of cello at Baylor University, will present a faculty recital at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 8, in Roxy Grove Hall. He will be joined by another long-time faculty member, Associate Professor of Piano Jane Abbott-Kirk.

Their program will open with Meditation, written by German-American composer Paul Hindemith in 1938, and then the Cello Sonata No. 4 in C Major, written in 1815 by the German master Ludwig van Beethoven. After intermission, Hardie will perform the final movement, "Allegro molto vivace," from Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály's Sonata for Unaccompanied Cello, Op. 8, dating from the war year of 1915. The concluding piece will be a chamber work by one of the greatest of all 20th-century American composers, Samuel Barber. His Cello Sonata, Op. 6, premiered in New York City on March 5, 1933.

Before coming to Baylor in 1981, Hardie was solo cellist with the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa, and was on the faculty at New Mexico State University. He is active as a recitalist and chamber musician, serving as principal cellist of several orchestras, including the Waco Symphony Orchestra and the El Paso Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra. He has a keen interest in contemporary music and received a BMI Young Composer Award while in graduate school. His CD recording of Steven Stucky's Voyages for solo cello and wind ensemble, performed with the Baylor Wind Ensemble, was released on the Albany label in 1997 and received a first round nomination for a Grammy Award.

Abbott-Kirk has been on the music faculty at Baylor University since 1973.

This recital is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor University School of Music at 710-3991.